Happiness Chances: The Return of Renee
by Tracy Diane Miller
Summary: This very short story is a continuation of "The Metamorphosis of the Butterfly."


Happiness Chances: The Return of Renee  
  
Summary: This very short story is a continuation of "The Metamorphosis of the Butterfly."  
  
Disclaimer: Early Edition characters belong to whoever created them. No copyright infringement intended. No profit is being made.  
  
I dedicate this story to Candi whose intelligence, eloquence, and humor continues to inspire me.  
  
Author: Tracy Diane Miller E-mail address: tdmiller82@hotmail.com  
  
Happiness Chances: The Return of Renee  
  
Mom insisted that a person had forty-two chances at happiness, but all he needed was one.  
  
Admittedly, he was scared about embarking on the threshold of romance. He hadn't exactly been the poster boy for a successful romantic relationship. His previous liaisons could have qualified for disaster relief. He loved Genie, but she had broken his heart by ending their relationship. He had believed that a solid romance was built on a foundation of shared values and interests. Genie made it seem as if these attributes were a recipe for failure. She had argued that they were too much alike and that they both lacked direction. Maybe he lacked direction when it came to a career, but he had well-defined personal goals. He craved the same kind of marriage that his parents enjoyed, a long loving union to his best friend. And he wanted children. But Genie wanted something else, something that he couldn't give her.  
  
Then there was Marcia. What was he thinking when he married her? He knew what he was thinking. He was thinking that he loved her more than anything and that their love was the only thing that mattered. Love had blinded him to the obvious. He couldn't see the forest for the trees. He and Marcia were ill suited from the start. She hungered for professional success and status. Working was a means to an end for him, a necessary evil that enabled him to provide for his family. He wanted children, she didn't. She was an extrovert who enjoyed mesmerizing a captive audience. He was an introvert who respected opposing viewpoints and never desired to convert people to his way of thinking. Still, he never saw it coming. Not when he couldn't put his key into the lock. Not when he saw his suitcase flying out of the window. Not when she wouldn't take his phone calls. A wedding anniversary was supposed to be a prelude to a celebration not a death knell to a marriage. The appearance of the process server handing him divorce papers had destroyed his romantic Cinderella ideal.  
  
Emma Shaw was an intensely bright, yet brief candle that burned in his heart. He wasn't expecting it and he certainly didn't ask for it, but Emma taught him how to love again. She taught him not to be afraid to commune with those emotions that he had buried deep within his soul. She taught him not to be afraid of the unknown, to look forward to the daily mysteries of life, mysteries that weren't revealed a day early. And she taught him how to smile again. He had given her his heart and all that he was, but her heart had already been pledged to another man, a ghost. He couldn't compete with a memory. He wouldn't compete with reality. How ironic that he should surrender her at the opera where the musical strains of tormented masters echoed a variety of conflicting emotions: joy, sorrow, birth, and death. As he watched her ascend that staircase to the waiting arms of her destiny, she took a piece of him with her that night. He had been willing to take the risk with Emma. After Emma, it had taken him some time before he had been willing to take the risk at love again. He had given up on romance after Emma. But that was until she walked into his life. Renee. Maybe she was what The Paper had planned for him all along.  
  
It certainly didn't seem that way when he saved her from a mugging in the park. Sure, he found her attractive and they had even clumsily flirted with each other. But when he learned that her name was Renee Callahan from Hickory, Indiana, the same Renee Callahan that Mom had not so subtly hinted that she wanted him to ask out, this chance meeting in the park began to smell like a convenient set up. It had the odor of a parental machination. Betty Callahan was one of Mom's oldest and dearest friends. Mom had told him that Renee was in Chicago. Mom had wanted him to give Renee a call. Then the mugging victim turned out to be Renee. His parents had already created a phony front page of The Paper because they wanted to surprise him with a birthday party. And he knew that Mom was a vigilant matchmaker determined to see him re-marry so that she could have grandchildren. He didn't mean to act like such a jerk and say all those things to Renee in the park, but was a guy supposed to think? And he didn't plan for his appearance at her office to apologize to thrust him in a dangerous drama complete with a gallery of unsavory characters willing to do anything to steal Renee's research. But even with their handcuff adventure, even with them fleeing bad guys, even with her cutting him while she shaved him, he wouldn't trade a moment of the time that they had spent together. She was such a myriad of wonderful qualities wrapped in one beautiful package: smart, determined, and fearless. And those qualities were peppered with attributes like sensitivity, femininity, and vulnerability.  
  
He had even told her about The Paper...sorta. But tomorrow's newspaper today with a cat seemed like the punch line in some pathetic stand up comedy routine. She laughed at his "joke." He laughed, too. But inside, he was relieved that she didn't believe him. He wanted her to get to know him, Gary Hobson, a regular guy not a hero with a futuristic newspaper.  
  
Their first date was more than he could have hoped for. The heavens had initially cried; hesitant, forlorn and temperamental and the rain appeared to want to beat the tiny blue car into submission with its steady pellets. Or, maybe the dismal weather was a precursor of disaster, a forecast of doom for their relationship. Undaunted, he and Renee continued with their date. Dinner was good; the movie was fair. But the good night kiss that he had given her outside of her apartment was magical.  
  
The rain had stopped. It was as if the heavens approved.  
  
He called her the next morning. That call was followed by many more dates: to dinner, concerts, and the movies. They kissed. They laughed. And they talked, sharing their dreams over cappuccino. The fact that the insidious Wayland Corporation and the government had wanted her research to further their self-interests had surprised her. Despite an outward sophistication that had grown with maturity, she still possessed a small town naiveté. She had believed that her formula to predict weather patterns would help in famine relief. She never planned to use her abilities to attain wealth. As silly as it sounded she thought that she could save the world with her ability to see the future. But she would have to find another way. He listened in wide-eyed amazement, her confession eerily mirroring his own destiny. They complemented each other in so many ways with similar values and goals.  
  
They had been dating for three weeks when they had their first lovers' spat. She had been over McGinty's one evening and discovered when she was about to leave that her car had broken down. It was late. He had called for a cab to take her home, but for some reason, cabs proved elusive that night. The skies were clear and the air smelled fresh. She decided that she would walk home. He looked at her with disbelief. He didn't mean for his words to come out so harsh and perhaps a tad chauvinistic (although he didn't believe that they were), but he told her that there was no way that he would "allow" her to walk home in a city fraught with muggers waiting to prey on unsuspecting victims. He hoped that she would view his words as concern. Instead, she accused him of being a chauvinist. She said that she could take care of herself. He countered by reminding her that he had saved her from muggers before. She reiterated that she could take care of herself. Their verbal Ping-Pong continued until she told him that she could prove her point. She told him to pretend that he was a mugger. He flashed her a confused look, but honored her request. The next thing he knew she had flipped him. He hit the floor with a painful thump. He lay there on his back, his eyes glazed with shock. He got the message.  
  
A week later, they went to Hickory to visit their parents. They quickly discovered that the news of their relationship had spread through the small town like wildfire particularly when two eager moms were involved. Lois and Betty made no secret that they were praying for nuptials for their kids. And if he didn't know any better he would have sworn that Mom had plotted this union for a very long time. Maybe there was some embarrassing tale almost like those nude baby pictures, a demented influx of parental pride that parents insist on taking and showing to others years later to the chagrin of their humiliated child. Maybe during a long ago afternoon when Mom visited Betty, she saw Renee playing in her playpen and placed her baby boy in the playpen with the little girl. Maybe as toddlers in that situation their fate had been sealed. Maybe small mud green eyes gazed at the tiny aqua blue eyes in wonderment while their parents gushed with hopeful potential especially after little Renee welcomed him into her "lair" with a wet and sloppy kiss.  
  
He would never know. All he knew was that a chance meeting in a park had blossomed into love.  
  
He had used one happiness chance with her and that was all that he needed.  
  
The End. 


End file.
